IBM Consulting, rebranded in 2021 from IBM Global Business Services, is the professional services and consulting arm of IBM. IBM Consulting provides services to companies, global government organizations, non-profits and NGOs.

IBM Consulting

IBM Consulting, formerly known as IBM Global Business Services, has approximately 140,000 employees globally, with capabilities spanning strategy and

management consulting Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultant ...

, experience design, technology and

systems integration System integration is defined in engineering as the process of bringing together the component sub-systems into one system (an aggregation of subsystems cooperating so that the system is able to deliver the overarching functionality) and ensuring ...

, and operations. Internally, the team are organized into two main verticals, Business Transformation Services and Hybrid Cloud Services.

History

IBM's early involvement in IT services can be traced back to the mid-seventies and its Data Processing Support Services (DPSS) division. At the time, the company was under regulatory pressure to unbundle its support services from the sale of hardware. Additionally, with the launch of its early teleprocessing and database products, such as CICS and IMS, many customers could acquire the expertise needed to build their applications only through hiring consulting services directly from IBM. Later, in 1989, Eastman Kodak Company and IBM completed an agreement by which IBM designed, built and managed a new state-of-the-art data center for

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

Rochester Rochester may refer to: Places Australia * Rochester, Victoria Canada * Rochester, Alberta United Kingdom *Rochester, Kent ** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area ** History of Rochester, Kent ** HM Prison ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

under the brand name ISSC, Integrated Systems Solution Corporation. Also in 1989, IBM introduced Business Recovery Services, an offering that enables a business to continue operations in the event of an unplanned outage or disaster. In 1992, the company formed IBM Consulting Group, as a new management consulting organization with service lines in Business Transformation and IT Strategy Consulting. This initiative was led by Robert M. Howe, IBM vice-president and general manager of IBM Consulting Group. The group was rebranded to IBM Business Innovation Services in 2001, and then IBM Business Consulting Services. As the management consulting became more entangled with more technology delivery, the integrated organization became known as IBM Global Business Services. In 2002, IBM acquired the

and technology services arm of

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four account ...

, around the same time some other Big Four accounting firms were selling off their consulting arms (this was in order to avoid conflicts of interest in light of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act). PwC's consultancy business was sold to IBM for approximately

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

3.9 billion in cash and stock. This nearly doubled the number of consultants within IBM Global Services, adding 30,000 consultants in 52 countries. In 2016, IBM announced its planned acquisition of

Promontory Financial Group Promontory Financial Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM, is a global consulting firm that advises clients on a variety of financial services matters, including regulatory issues, compliance, risk management, liquidity, restructuring, acqui ...

in September 2016 and completed the transaction in November 2016. In October 2021, IBM Global Business Services was renamed IBM Consulting after the spin-off of IBM's Global Technology Services division into Kyndryl Holdings.

Organizational structure

IBM Consulting is organized into three growth platforms, which contain seven service lines: * Enterprise Strategy & Interactive Experience: Enterprise Strategy, IBM iX * Cloud Application Innovation: ADM Innovation, Cloud Application Migration Services, Next Gen EA * Cognitive Process Transformation: Cognitive Business Decision Support, Cognitive Process Re-Engineering, Cognitive Process Services

Acquisitions

* PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Consulting, 2002 * Bluewolf, 2016 * Resource/Ammirati, 2016 *

, 2016 * TruQua, 2020 * 7Summits, 2021 * SXiQ, 2021 * Sentaca, 2022 * Neudesic, 2022 * Octo, 2022

References

External links

IBM Consulting YouTube

IBM Consulting LinkedIn

IBM Consulting Twitter

IBM Global Services: a brief history, IBM Corporate Archives, May 2002
{{Authority control Global Business Services IBM Business Consulting Services